Dramatic differences in news judgments by the networks Thursday night. CBS
topped its Evening News with an exclusive story by Scott Pelley on how a
Secret Service officer testified "about one weekend day when the
President could not be accounted for for several minutes." Several
minutes into NBC Nightly News Lisa Myers told viewers about the overlap
between Monica Lewinsky's late night visits to the White House and
nights when Hillary Clinton was out of town. CNN and FNC also ran full
reports on the day's courthouse activities, but without the unique
information delivered by CBS and NBC. ABC's World News Tonight, however,
did not utter a syllable about the Starr investigation or any Clinton
scandal matter.

FNC's David
Shuster noted that Starr employed two grand juries to help churn through
the Secret Service officers and ran a soundbite from agent Larry
Cockell's attorney, John Kotelly, on the courthouse steps observing that
in Cockell's one hour before the grand jury "He did not have to
invoke a privilege for any of the questions that were asked." But
after all the ominous warnings last week in the media about how calling
Cockell meant Starr was trying an end run around attorney-client
privilege, only CNN's Bob Franken, on The World Today, pointed out the
false alarm, as lawyers for the agents "said agents were instructed
to not answer any questions about conversations between the President and
his attorneys and those questions, they went on, were not asked."

The anchors of the
ABC, CBS, FNC and NBC evening shows all took a few seconds to note the
announcement that Press Secretary Mike McCurry will depart the White House
this fall and that Joe Lockhart will replace him. Only CNN offered a full
story. Though Lockhart once toiled for ABC News and CNN, neither network
mentioned his media experience. (See item #4)

No one recalled
for viewers McCurry's admission to the Chicago Tribune that on
Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, "Maybe there'll be a
simple, innocent explanation. I don't think so, because I think we would
have offered that up already." Blitzer came closest, noting that
McCurry told "the Chicago Tribune the President's relationship with
Lewinsky was quote, 'a very complicated story.' It didn't take long
for him to regret those remarks..."

Here's what CBS
and NBC reported Thursday night, July 23, on the Monica front in the East
coast feed. I noticed that the 9pm ET The News with Brian Williams on
MSNBC opened with a revised piece by Lisa Myers which included the major
revelation from CBS's Scott Pelley, so I assume the West coast feeds of
the ABC and NBC evening shows may have offered new material.

-- CBS Evening
News. Dan Rather refrained from claiming Starr is probing Clinton's
"personal life" and went right to the big CBS scoop. Scott
Pelley disclosed what a Secret Service officer has already testified to
witnessing:
"Sources tell CBS News that one of the
officers recounts tense moments during which the President of the United
States could not be located."

Specifically,
Pelley relayed:
"One of the officers tells a story about one
weekend day when the President could not be accounted for for several
minutes. Sources say the officer retells events this way: On a weekend in
early 1996 the President was believed to be in the Oval Office but did not
answer a phone call there. An officer knocked on the door but there was no
answer. Harold Ickes, the Deputy Chief of Staff, was summoned and walked
into the Oval Office with a Secret Service agent. The Oval was empty. The
Secret Service control room was called and confirmed that the President
was in the area of the Oval Office. In a matter of moments Ickes and the
agent found Mr. Clinton and Lewinsky in a study that adjoins the
President's office. The officer says he does not know what was happening
in the study."
Noting that this officer has already appeared,
Pelley reported that Ickes was subpoenaed and appeared today at the
courthouse. Asked about the testimony by CBS, "Ickes said he never
heard of such an event and he forcefully denied any involvement."

-- NBC Nightly News. After stories on the falling
stock market and Clinton's plans to provide federal aid to heat wave
victims, NBC went to Lisa Myers. She explained that Cockell and three
other Secret Service officers appeared before two grand juries and
questioning focused on what they saw and heard after Clinton learned that
Lewinsky had been subpoenaed in the Paula Jones case. The key date:
December 28, the last time Monica went to the White House. In the Tripp
tapes, Myers asserted, Lewinsky said that Clinton told her to claim she
and Betty Currie were friends. Clinton said in the Jones deposition that
he was not alone with Lewinsky but, Myers reported, "a lawyer
familiar with Secret Service testimony said a number of officers say they
saw the President and Lewinsky alone, behind closed doors, for significant
periods of time."
Myers elaborated:
"In his deposition the President also said
he didn't remember ever meeting with Monica late at night. But Lewinsky
reportedly told Tripp of being in the White House late at night when
Hillary Clinton was out of town. An NBC News analysis finds that five of
the nights for which Starr subpoenaed records on the President's
movements between 6pm and 6am, were when Mrs. Clinton was out of
town."

The man Attorney General Janet Reno picked to run the Justice
Department's campaign finance probe told her that she must appoint an
independent counsel for the matter, disclosed a front page New York Times
story Thursday morning. That prompted two brief mentions in news updates
on NBC's Today, zilch on ABC or CBS Thursday morning.

During her weekly
10am ET press conference Reno replied to a question about the story, thus
providing the networks with video they could use Thursday night.
Nonetheless, neither ABC's World News Tonight or NBC Nightly News
uttered a word about the subject. FNC's Fox Report gave it a few
seconds. Only the CBS Evening News and CNN's The World Today treated it
as a serious development as each ran full stories.

"Report to
Reno Urges a Counsel Over Donations," announced the July 23 front
page New York Times headline. Reporter David Johnston revealed:
"After a 10-month inquiry, the departing
chief of the Justice Department's campaign finance unit has concluded in a
confidential report to Attorney General Janet Reno that she has no
alternative but to seek an independent prosecutor to investigate political
fundraising abuses during President Clinton's re-election campaign,
government officials said Wednesday. The prosecutor, Charles LaBella,
delivered the report to Reno last Thursday as he prepared to return to San
Diego this week to take over as interim U.S. Attorney."
Johnston pointedly observed: "In effect,
after being chosen by Reno to revive an investigation that she had been
criticized for neglecting, LaBella has marked his departure by challenging
her to replace him with an outside counsel."
"LaBella's report does not suggest that
prosecutors are ready, or even close, to bringing a case against any top
Democrats or administration officials, but contends only that their
fundraising activities warrant outside investigation. And in a legal
analysis, LaBella concluded that Reno had misinterpreted the law creating
an artificially high standard to avoid invoking the independent counsel
statute, officials said.
"LaBella's conclusions, coming from a
seasoned federal prosecutor with full access to all grand jury evidence in
the case, represents a serious internal fracture within the Justice
Department...."

-- Morning show
coverage, July 23: A 23-second item during the 7am news update on Today
read by Ann Curry and another 18-second mention at 8am, MRC news analyst
Mark Drake observed. Not a word on ABC's Good Morning America, MRC
analyst Clay Waters documented. Zilch on CBS's This Morning, but MRC
analyst Jessica Anderson noticed that news reader Hattie Kauffman made
time to announce the results of a CBS News poll which found 47 percent
think Clinton should never offer a greater explanation of the Lewinsky
matter and 59 percent believe the investigation should be dropped.

-- Evening shows
on July 23: As noted above, zilch on ABC and NBC, full stories on CBS and
CNN. Instead of covering Reno, ABC's World News Tonight opened with a
"revolution with sight," how a FDA panel has approved a surgical
procedure to make glasses unnecessary for people who can't see well up
close. ABC's Tom Foreman reported on "Tobacco Road" stores in
Indiana and how the "chain of convenience stores is causing an uproar
with new commercials" that push cigarette sales by saying they
can't tell what they sell. One ad just shows video of kittens. Their
slogans: "Gas and cheap prices on, well, you know" and "Gas
and cheap prices on stuff we can't mention here." Plus, pegged to
Al Gore's visit to Chernobyl, how robots can go into radioactive areas
to do what human used to have to do.

NBC Nightly News
couldn't find time for Reno, but did allocate time for "In
Depth" stories on "the dangerous down side of the building boom:
construction accidents." Plus, how some in Andrews, North Carolina,
home of bombing suspect Eric Rudolph, are torn because they share his
anti-government and anti-abortion views, as well as a "Living
Longer" piece on four men over 70 participating in a cross-country
bike race.

On the CBS Evening
News Dan Rather hesitatingly declared: "Pressure, not all of it from
Republicans, is building on Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint yet
another independent counsel, this one to investigate political fundraising
abuses, alleged abuses, in President Clinton's 1996 re-election
campaign."
Phil Jones began: "The Attorney General is
in a real bind now. There is no way she can dismiss the howls for an
independent counsel as partisan Republican sniping since the latest call
comes from one of her very own," Charles LaBella, "the man Reno
hand picked." Jones noted that "at her weekly Thursday press
conference Reno tried to diminish LaBella's role when a reporter
described him as main lawyer in the investigation."
Jones played a clip of FBI Director Freeh at a
December House hearing calling for an IC, before concluding by reporting
that Freeh, "his lead FBI agent in the investigation, and LaBella
have been summoned to appear before a House committee next Thursday to
publicly talk about their private dispute with Janet Reno."

CNN's The World
Today ran a full report from Pierre Thomas, who added that LaBella argues
in his report that "key Democrats and White House officials may have
conspired to break campaign finance laws..."

Thomas reminded
viewers that last week at a hearing with Reno Senator Fred Thompson had
highlighted a memo from Freeh declaring the need for an IC. That's the
first network mention of the Thompson/Reno exchange since all the networks
ignored it last week.

The language of abortion. Thursday night ABC referred to
"so-called" partial birth, FNC explained how each side of the
issue wishes to be described and an hour later CNN used the term preferred
by the liberal side.

-- Peter Jennings
announced on World News Tonight: "The House of Representatives today
overrode President Clinton's veto of a bill to ban so-called partial
birth abortions. The bill now goes to the Senate where Republicans may not
have the votes for an override."

-- Barely an hour
later, on the 8pm ET The World Today, CNN anchor Joie Chen adopted the
language of supporters: "The House today voted to override President
Clinton's veto of ban on certain late term abortions. The vote was ten
more than the two-thirds majority needed...."

Peter Jennings announced on ABC's World News Tonight on Thursday, over
video of Mike McCurry with Joe Lockhart next to him but lower because of
the camera angle: "At the White House today President Clinton
announced that the man who has been his spokesman through thick and thin
will be leaving. Press Secretary Mike McCurry will step down this fall. He
doesn't say what he'll do next. He will be replaced by the Deputy
Press Secretary, that's him down there, Joe Lockhart."

Jennings didn't
bother telling viewers how Lockhart used to work for ABC News. In a full
story for CNN, Wolf Blitzer also skipped over Lockhart's time at the
cable network.

Here's the
Lockhart bio, as described in the March 1996 MediaWatch "Revolving
Door" column:
"In the Clinton-Gore campaign office, Roll
Call reported that Joseph Lockhart, who bounces between Democratic
presidential campaigns and network slots, has bounced again, this time
into the national press secretary slot. Lockhart was an assistant press
secretary to Democratic candidate Walter Mondale in 1984, then Press
Secretary to Senator Paul Simon until becoming assignment editor for ABC
News in Chicago in 1985. He put in a stint as a deputy assignment editor
at CNN before joining the 1988 Dukakis-Bentsen campaign as a traveling
press aide."

After the campaign
he assumed the Deputy Press Secretary position at the White House.

Bernard Shaw did
acknowledge Lockhart's previous life at CNN. On Thursday's Inside
Politics offered this tribute: "I recall Joe Lockhart when he worked
at CNN. He was outstanding. We'll see how he performs at the White
House."

An advantage
Democratic Presidents have: the option to pick media veterans, still
admired by their old colleagues, to spin their policies.-- Brent Baker

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